Phoenixville Area School District to self-assess response to criminal warning signs

PHOENIXVILLE — A week after Dan Cushing decided to withdraw his unexpected motion at the end of a workshop meeting, the Phoenixville Area School Board is choosing to let the district’s administration look into whether signs of illegal activities are being noticed in employees.

Cushing’s motion to retain “special counsel” to look into the issue came in response to the charges of child pornography possession filed last week against former Phoenixville administrator Troy Czukoski.

Instead of looking for outside help, the board decided to have Superintendent Alan Fegley look into self-assessment.

“We’re simply going to ask the superintendent to come back to the board with a plan for performing this assessment,” said Board President Joshua Gould.

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The plan would detail an assessment of “whether there’s anything we can do that we’re not already doing to detect behavior relating to child pornography and respective (issues),” according to Gould.

“We sincerely hope we are doing everything we can,” Gould said. “This is a self-reflective assessment into how we are operating.”

After the meeting, board members emphasized to The Mercury that the assessment is not an investigation into Czukoski but an evaluation of the district.

Czukoski was a principal at the district’s middle school before being moved to head the district’s virtual learning efforts in February 2012. He left the district in

He is accused of possessing more than 150 images depicting children engaged in sexual acts.